Here’s a weird story. And I think we have the internet to thank for discovering the weirdness. Last night the New York Times printed an AP story about the United Nations’ followup to the Goldstone report, titled "UN Chief Praises Israel Probe of Its Gaza Actions."
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says in a 72-page report Thursday night to the General Assembly that ”Israel followed up on every allegation.”
It turns out the Secretary-General never said that. Israel said it.
In today’s briefing at the UN, the UN made the point that Ban Ki-moon said no such thing. It explained that the 72-page report was mostly Israel’s report. It included just three pages from the Sec’y Gen’l.
The Spokesperson noted that in the document submitted by the Secretary-General to the General Assembly on the Goldstone report, only the first three pages are written by the Secretary-General and the Secretariat.
The remainder of the document consists of annexes containing information provided, respectively, by the Government of Israel, the Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine and the Permanent Mission of Switzerland.
Confused? Here is the 72-page UN report released yesterday. The Secy Gen’l's judgment at the start is noncommital:
It is my sincere hope that General Assembly resolution 64/10 has served to encourage investigations by the Government of Israel and the Palestinian side that are independent, credible and in conformity with international standards. I note from the materials received that the processes initiated by the Government of Israel and the Government of Switzerland are ongoing… As such, no determination can be made on the implementation of the resolution by the parties concerned.
The long Israeli response follows (and is not clearly identified). In paragraph 185, Israel pats itself on the back:
Because Israel followed up on every allegation, regardless of whether the source was neutral, hostile, or friendly, it launched investigations into 150 separate incidents, including 36 criminal investigations opened thus far.
AP seems to have revised its coverage. But as Mark Twain said, a lie goes around the world in the time it takes the truth to tie its shoes.
This discovery was published at reddit, which says that the mistake demonstrates pro-Israel bias in the press. It was brought to my attention by a reader. Note that I also published the mistake!
Does anyone other than The New York Times still consider the AP to be a ‘reliable source’?
Ah, AP is the best, the subtlest. A well chosen adjective here, a mood altering subjunctive there and they’ll have you believing in fairies.
Welcome to the wonderful World of Israel-speak.
It’s really galling that a sentence in the appendix which was Israel’s response was pulled out and attributed to Ban Ki-Moon. John Heilprin of AP is the culprit. He needs to issue a correction.
The BBC issued the following correction on that false AP report:
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported that Ban Ki-moon had praised Israel for diligently following up on allegations made against it. This was based on an Associated Press dispatch that proved to be incorrect and the line has been removed from our report. link to news.bbc.co.uk
The uncorrected AP report still appears on the NY Times website.
If you read Haaretz regularly, you will come across many such instances of reading about things allegedly said by unnamed American officials which cannot be found to be connected to any real person.
This find is indeed good, and it is telling about the what the MSM will communicate because it is merely the mouthpiece of the status quo. Does its discovery and exposure mean anything substantive? I do not think so. There are several reasons why I make this assessment.
The entire system, as I have previously posted about, will not turn on its head because of this request made by the UN and the Goldstone investigation. This is the primary reason why I make this statement, and I don’t think I have to elaborate (but will if someone wants to challenge what I said) because it is self-evident.
What flows from this main premise is the very way the “investigations” proceed, from the very recommendations themselves. They were told to investigate themselves, and the ONLY reason why they were told to investigate themselves was because Israel was involved. Lets make a comparison, one which was made previously by Mr. Weiss, the case of Serbia as an example of the work of International Law – was Serbia told to investigate itself? No, Serbia was not told to investigate itself, after a few thousand murders and a process of ethnic cleansing, it was attacked by the NATO forces. Was South Africa told to “investigate itself?” No, there was a full bore application of sanctions applied, eventually joined in by the powers that be, large foundations etc., so there was no request for self-examination. Was self-examination invoked on Rwanda? You know the answer, no.
What is so stellar and exceptional about Israel that it would be asked to examine itself? Nothing, it is even WORSE than apartheid in South Africa, there are several million ethnically cleansed by Israel, and the daily and deep murderous atrocities against Gaza. This colonial process has been going on for over 60 years, why was Israel asked to “investigate itself?” In fact, Israel has done nothing but self investigation which has repeatedly amounted to nothing, isolated the findings from the real source (occupation), and minimized any actions taken to mere slaps on the hands.
So why do I ask the question and elaborate? I bet you are beginning to see my direction, this methodology of self-examination has never been applied in such a serious and obvious case of atrocious behavior practiced by Israel, in the application of International Law. In fact, it has all the makings of a complete white wash which will amount to nothing, zero.
Here is what believe will transpire, Israel will submit its “full” report(s), the UN might even equivocate on a number of them, but will accept others. It will request a resubmission, and than after a period of time this will take place with the characteristic hand slapping and not a major substantive change (or some various exchange that will look like “progress”). There might even be a swearing that this type of atrocity will never occur again, and Israel will go back to its slow ethnic cleansing and tiny acts of murderous consequence, the house demolition process will continue and the colonial settlements will continue to ebb and flow at various pace. However, nothing substantive will occur.
The other obvious outcome of this self-examination exercise (along with Hamas which really means the Palestinian people, will be dragged as victims through this same process) is that time will have elapsed, a great amount of time – which will mock the saying of “time heals old wounds, and in the process the nanosecond generation will slumber. Having said all of this, I think it is a sound analysis that reflects the facts, reality, and those who disagree will have nothing but time to see what I am saying played out.
Oh, and as far as Ban Ki-moon, well you could look at it like what we call “foreplay,” he will eventually say yes (“no no – no not now – no I do not feel right about it – no, I have a headache – OK, OK, yes”). To put it in short form, if you want to take Ban Ki-moon’s nod or disapproval as a pivotal point (rather than looking at the whole picture like above).
In fact, Ban Ki-Moon said nothing at all about anything. All the talking was done by Martin Nesirky, his spokesman, at the briefing given on Friday 5 February. Full notes of the briefing are at link to un.org
The full report is at link to daccess-dds-ny.un.org
Part of the confusion is that the Report has no table of contents, and the actual 3 page part written by the UN goes straight into page 4, Annex I, which begins the Israeli whitewash, continuing to page 63, Annex II (letters by Palestinians) and page 70 Annex III (letter by Swiss).
New York Times might be slow to write about the Goldstone report, but they were blindingly fast to write up anything remotely showing the UN to distance away from it, even if it was completely untrue.
Time for an American “shaking off?”
link to opinion-maker.org
So no brown envelope full of Swiss Francs or embarrassing negatives changed hands after all.
The italians have a nice word ‘bustarella’ for that, if memory serves.
Am I the only one who sees a pun in the title? There’s puns everywhere you know. Out there. In the wild.
“This time we went too far.”
link to pulsemedia.org
Ziocaine antidote:
link to pulsemedia.org
Well – I say Ban Ki-Moon should learn to praise the Zionist-regime earlier the better – before he end up that European UN secretary general who lost his life for criticizing Israel.
It’s very dangerous to speak truth in the West
link to rehmat1.wordpress.com
What is everyone’s thoughts on Col. Kemp – the guy who spoke ‘on behalf’ of UN Watch on Gaza?
What was his methodology? How did he arrive at his conclusions?
I recall him complimenting the IDF before the massacre was even over.
I’ve been debating with a guy that says the Goldstone Report is ‘silly’ because in a previous UN publication, the UN got a fact wrong (that Hezbollah wasn’t smuggling arms, and then Israel found some or something).
You can’t even discuss this issue with people who dismiss 500-page reports without reading them.
I’ve only read the Executive Summary of the Goldstone Report although I plan to read the whole thing. What would be great is if this website would take the findings one by one and analyze them. I know the phosphorus shelling of the UN and the El Badr flour mill are what Israel wants to concentrate on because they are willing to admit limited responsibility in a case of no fatalities for the UN and an arguable case for the flour mill, but the other findings in the report are quite egregious and deserve more light.